The Room
Cafe Riggs opened with the Riggs Hotel in 2020 — the boutique luxury hotel's all-day brasserie inside the historic 1898 Riggs Bank building, with the original bank-lobby architecture intact: marble columns, hand-painted ceiling murals, the mahogany bank-counter converted into a working bar.
Eater DC named Cafe Riggs one of the year's best new restaurants in 2021. The format scales without losing identity: morning espresso, working lunch, afternoon cocktail, dinner brasserie service.
The Food
The menu runs French-American brasserie. The escargots, the steak frites, the seasonal-rotating Mid-Atlantic seafood, the all-day burger, and the brunch programme handle the menu's spine.
Cocktail programme is one of downtown DC's most-photographed. Wine programme runs French-and-American. Service is informed and warm.
Best Occasion Fit
Birthday: Birthdays at Cafe Riggs are theatrical without being theatrical — the historic bank-lobby setting does the work.
First Date: The bar at Cafe Riggs is one of Penn Quarter's most-photographed first-date seats.
Close a Deal: Cafe Riggs is the boutique-luxury-hotel-restaurant alternative for a deal that wants the room to read as historic-American.